Oh, dear flock. I do not want to be writing a rambling today. I was secretly relieved that I was too busy to write a rambling last week. I was heartbroken by the news out of Buffalo, New York, just a few days beforehand. Ten people killed by a crazed gunman, who was motivated by White Supremacy and hatred. His manifesto echoed ideas that have become all too mainstream and even show up in primetime punditry. There wasn’t time to sit with that reality and think about how to reflect on it pastorally and theologically, and so my decision to share my sermon from the Sunday before was an opportunity to deflect for a bit. I hadn’t even seen the headlines about the California church shooting on Sunday, another hate-fueled rampage that was thwarted by a brave doctor who gave his life to help subdue the gunman. Let us pray.
Today, I can’t avoid the headlines. I want to, but I can’t. We now have a new “second-worst school shooting in US history”. It’s a long list, (thirty already this year), so taking over the number two spot represents a real moment of horror. Nineteen children dead. Two adults. Seventeen wounded physically. Countless emotional victims. Like you, I’m grieving, I’m shocked, and I’m angry. I don’t want to be doing this again. Again. What can I do or say that makes this better? I have past letters to congregations and past ramblings where we’ve walked this path before. And so little has changed. It could happen tomorrow as easily as it happened yesterday. Lord, have mercy.
I pastored through Sandy Hook and its aftermath. That shooting killed more, but injured far fewer than the one in Uvalde, TX. I had a child the age of the Sandy Hook victims at the time of the shooting. I remember standing in the driveway with Donna, waiting on the school bus to drop off our oldest that afternoon. I clearly recall how we both embraced her and broke down in tears there in the driveway, a mixture of grief and relief, as we wrapped our arms around her, safely home. I talked to many parents back then who had a similar experience. Sandy Hook remains the largest community grief event of my seventeen-year ministry. There was much pastoral care with parishioners afterwards. The shared grief was palpable in the congregation (and the country) for weeks after the shooting. I still feel it, as I remember it now. Christ, have mercy.
I have been drawn to prayer, of course. It’s what we do. We turn to God. We pray for persons who feel like they are targeted for their race or their heritage. We pray for those who grieve the loss of a friend, a parent, or a neighbor. We lift up the parents who have gotten the worst news you can possibly receive. We surround the wounded with healing prayers. We ask God to comfort children who do not understand why such things happen. We give thanks for teachers who have had to take training on helping students survive, and how to serve as human shields. We pray for the responders and medical personnel who put their lives on the line and/or have had to deal with a mass casualty event, one which may wound them beyond repair. We pray for communities that ask how these things happen in their midst, and for those who wonder if they missed an opportunity to take action that may have prevented them. We call upon each other to pray. We pray. And we pray. And we pray. And still it keeps happening. Lord, have mercy.
We must pray, but we must be both intentional and careful in our prayers. We always hear a lot of public figures calling for “thoughts and prayers” after massacres like the ones we’ve seen in the last ten days. We will also hear angry people screaming that such statements are a cop-out. Let us not equivocate: praying matters. Nonetheless, praying will be denigrated, and perhaps deservedly, if it’s merely for show. Empty prayers are useless, and scripture is full of prophets reminding us that when we pray, God knows our hearts and our actions, and has no time for empty prayers or sacrifices. Jesus also cautions us about such things, calling out hypocrites and those who pray for show, but don’t really mean their prayers or live in a way that matches their prayer life. O Lord, hear my prayer.
The truth is that much of this teaching throughout our Judeo-Christian heritage is traced back to the third commandment: “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.” We tend to think that means we shouldn’t swear with God’s name when we hit our thumb with the hammer. Well, it includes that, but another aspect of the meaning would caution us against offering prayers in God’s name that are clearly out of sync with God’s intentions. If we are out of step with the commandments to love, seek justice, care for the weak, and all the other things that God is so clear about, yet we offer glorious or passionate prayers that are only designed to make us feel better, I think we’re crossing that line into vanity. True prayer is humble and seeks God’s guidance to help us address and repair the brokenness of this world, not to hide from it in the comfort of God’s embrace. If we’re not really listening, it’s our vanity getting in the way. When I call, answer me.
On Easter Sunday I preached about the dangers of empty words when we say, “I’m sorry,” or “Alleluia!” I suggested our lives should reflect our proclamations. Empty prayers are equally dangerous. There is a connection between prayer and action, and our lives should reflect what we pray for. Remember that when Matthew’s gospel portrays the Shepherd sitting on the throne sorting goats and sheep the sorting wasn’t based on what people prayed for or what they thought about. What mattered was what a person did, specifically for “the least of these.” For what we do for the least of these we do for Jesus. All too often, thoughts and prayers are merely a deflection. O Lord, hear my prayer.
So, what do we do? There aren’t easy answers. There is much disagreement. And yet, doing nothing is the wrong path. Doing nothing means that literally nothing will change. We are slaves to power politics when it comes to school shootings. Americans are largely in agreement about some ways we might begin to address such tragedies, making repeat events less likely (nothing will eliminate them altogether), but those who represent us in this temporal world are motivated by power, not the prophets God has sent to remind us of what is expected from God’s people. Polling numbers that show three quarters of the population are asking for changes in unison. Despite their universal support, to name some of the changes here would be “political,” and subject to immediate criticism as a result. It’s shocking that 75-80% of us agree on anything these days, but more so that we still won’t act. Come, and listen to me.
My heart has broken for the people in Buffalo and Uvalde. My heart has broken for our collective community that seems paralyzed by such things, unable to respond with anything other than the simplest reflections and prayers. We’re well practiced at this by now. We’re doing it again. My hope is that underneath our prayers, we really do want God to act, and to act through us. There is a favorite prayer I sometimes use at the end of the Prayers of the People in which we pray, “help us to ask only what accords with our will; and those good things we dare not, or in our blindness cannot ask, grant us for the sake of your Son…” It’s time to ask for the things that align with God’s will for the world, the things that lead to peace and safety for all God’s children, the things that move us to action despite our sense that we want to live behind our blindness and our vanity, where we don’t dare to go most days. We know who should be counted among “the least of these”. We will get on our knees and pray before the Shepherd on the throne. Again. It’s what we do. …So that we can go and do. Which way will we go? Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven.
Tom+
This rambling is a form of prayer. I was singing the following prayers throughout its writing:
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
O Lord, hear my prayer. O Lord, hear my prayer: When I call, answer me. O Lord, hear my prayer, O Lord, hear my prayer: Come and listen to me.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
Photo Credit: Candle, by Cristian Ruso, via Dreamstime.com subscription.